Browsed byAuthor: thebeautifiedblog

It’s a beautiful new week and we are excited at all the amazing things God will do for us.

The confessions for the week just remind us that God’s got us covered.

It’s hinged on Romans 8:28 King James Version (KJV).
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.I declare this week that every situation, every circumstance is working in alignment with God’s will for my life.
I declare that I’m a victor over every circumstance I encounter this week.
The Lord goes before me this week and makes every crooked path straightened.
This week I’m not disadvantaged because everything works together to my advantage.
This week men see me and recognize whose I am as I exude God’s favor, light, blessings, mercy, goodness, wisdom and grace.
This week I run and I’m not weary; I walk and do not faint; I have the strength of an eagle and carry out my business/work this week with ease.

It is the beginning of another week and at the Beautified Network we are focusing our eyes on God completely.

Our confession for the week is hinged on Proverbs 3:5-6
“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths”.

This week as I trust in the Lord, He directs my path
He leads me in the right way!
He orders my step towards greatness!
Even though I walk through challenges and difficulties, I have overcome!
Whatever platform others have been denied access to, or could not step up to. I gain access to and I step up to that platform.
My head is anointed with the oil and fragrance of heaven, therefore I attract favor, blessings, opportunities and other good things.
Surely I shall experience God’s goodness and mercy every day of this week.

This week God is touching our hearts, minds and thoughts. He is renewing them to conform to His words, plans and thoughts.

We are using Ezekiel 36:26 as our bench mark.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh”

I have the mind of Christ.
My mind is renewed daily
My heart is opened to receive and understand God’s word and it transforms me inside out.
My heart is opened to receive God’s words, revelations, dreams and visions.
My thoughts and words are seasoned with grace.
My heart shall sing a new song everyday of this month.
This month the thought of me for good is placed in the heart of my helpers.
This week I take delivery of God’s thoughts for me and I enter into the manifestation of these thoughts.

It is a brand new week and at the Beautified Network, this is our declaration.

We are taking it from Zechariah 4:9 “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; his hands will also complete it…”

Ready?

I declare this month as my season of completion
Every good work God has started in my life and family is brought to completion this month.
Every resource (human, material,financial…) needed to complete every good work my hands has started is made available to me now.
This month I’m not lackadaisical or lazy towards the works of my hands. I am zealous, anointed and graced to finish whatever I start.
This month I am diligent at my work and I receive speed to double my efforts; therefore I get maximize results.
This month I receive new ideas, new concepts, new insights and better ways of increasing my capacity to get wealth and prosper.

This week’s confession is hinged on Revelations 21:5, “And he who was seated on the throne said, “BEHOLD, I AM MAKING ALL THINGS NEW”.

I speak over this month and I declare it my season of new beginnings.
God places and establishes my feet on new grounds and leads me to greater heights.
New doors open up on to me and no adversary can withstand me.
This month I run with new speed and I achieve much more than I have in the past months of the years and there is no limitation to what I can achieve.
This month I have much more harvest than I have had in the past months of the year.
This month I walk in new realms, I walk beyond the limitations set on my path and I do exceedingly greater and have better results than I have had in the past months of the year.
This month all things are made new for me and my loved ones and our latter blessings, victories, miracles, breakthroughs, favor… exceeds the former.

Mummy just turned 27 and I am so excited at what the New Year brings. I know you may be wondering why I am writing to you, especially since you aren’t here yet and I’m not exactly sure when you will come but my precious daughter, this is my heartfelt birthday gift to you. I haven’t met you but I already feel a great sense of responsibility to share with you the amazing experience God has taken mummy through. I know Jesus will read this to you for me in preparation for your arrival and please feel free to always use this gift as an encouraging reminder as you journey through life. You see just like you, mummy was once a child. Born into this world with no clue as to what to expect as the days and the years rolled by. One thing for sure is that during your early stages, mummy and daddy with the sole help of God will be there to hold your hands to guide you through. We will impact by God’s amazing grace the right seeds that you will need to survive in this harsh world.

My precious Tamar, there is only so much mummy can do and as you begin to evolve into the woman that God has called you to be, your once one sided mind accustomed to the choices of mummy and daddy will now be divided. There is a naughty man called the devil who will take it upon himself to mislead you and show you attractive options which may seem good for you but not right for you in the sight of God your Father. I would never lie to you and I won’t start now but please listen to me. You may fall! Not once, not twice, not the number of times I can write on several pages of this letter. That’s the hard truth and I deeply feel your heart my love. I know how desperately you would want to please God, mummy and daddy but life may not make it easy for you to do so. You see there’s a particular area I want to focus on here. I’m focusing on this because no matter how the world may try to water it down in your time before your eyes, you must know that most of us were created to optimally function in twos. This has been the case from the very beginning of time, with Adam & Eve. We were created to be relational in nature and it’s absolutely normal that as you grow, you will start to attract and be attracted by the opposite sex. My sweet daughter, please do not be afraid, it’s absolutely normal. Although I will strive to be a mother that will be your confidant after God, you may not want to share some of these things with me. You may feel all alone in your feelings sometimes, which may cause you to make decisions that seem right in your own beautiful understanding. Now while I will pray to be able to control situations that I can, the ones out of my control will be between you and our heavenly father Jesus. May I plead with you that you carefully and diligently seek Him as you begin to grow into your own purposeful woman?

Tamar darling, I cannot emphasize enough the importance in putting Jesus first before making those drastic decisions. I am not saying that you shouldn’t explore and learn from experiences which will create the best version of you but life is so much easier when Jesus has His stamp of approval on your footsteps. My dearest daughter, it’s never too early to start even though the world will paint a different picture to you. You may wonder how and why this is so important to mummy. Well I love you so much Tamar that I am extremely grateful to God that I made mistakes in my time which will become testimonies in yours. I just heard you ask why I won’t allow you make your own mistakes. My princess Tamar, it’s not your fault that you have such a question and that’s exactly how I would feel if I had my mum tell me these. My sweet daughter, there are mistakes that you can absolutely do without. Now this is not to say that God doesn’t use our mistakes to push us to His amazing purpose for our lives. He does and as a matter of fact that is why He is a beautiful Father who makes all things work together for our good. Both the good and bad steps! But do you know that there will be consequences for your actions my love? These consequences are powerful enough to change the entire course of your life and destiny. This is why it is so important to carry Jesus along in the littlest details of your life.

Mummy honestly wishes that she could write the story of your life from the time you are born till your last day on earth but I do not have that power. Come to think of it, it will be extremely scary to have that power because in the grand scheme of things, I do not know what is best for you. The seeming intelligence of my mind is absolute foolishness unto God. My thought out imaginations and plans for you or even the plans you will have for yourself is only like a drop of water in the mightiest ocean of God’s plan for you. Let mummy use herself as an example. You see, mummy wanted to get married at the age of 25 with all her children born by the age of 30 latest. I laugh at myself now Tamar my love. Mummy is now 27 and not married, although Daddy is very much in her life right now. I thought my life was all planned out until God stepped in and put a spin to it. I could have still achieved my 25 year marriage plan but Tamar I do not think I will be writing this letter to you if I did. I cannot imagine what my life would have been like. It will have taken a totally different turn away from God’s will and purpose for my life. Who knows, your name won’t even have been Tamar. By the way, I love your name so much because it means that you will flourish and thrive in all seasons of your entire life. You see, mummy’s heart was broken many times in her short time on earth. So many times! Love is free my darling but only a few can give it the way God has intended that you should be loved. Just like mummy you will come across many who will offer you different variations of what love looks and feels like. Don’t be easily swayed! Many of them will feel right but will lack the very substance of the kind of love Jesus wants you to experience.

My princess, they will never stand the test of time. May I ask that you please remain guarded by God’s word and never feel pressured to make any decision without wholeheartedly and patiently consulting your father Jesus? Tamar, do not let anyone tell you otherwise. You are unexplainably priceless and you deserve the very best standard of love. My daughter you must actively seek to experience God’s unconditional love for you and that way, you can easily identify the perfect will of God for your life. The thought of the depths of God’s love I feel as I write this letter to you brings me close to tears. This is the only gift I can give to you as your mother and it is far more valuable than anything that your mind can ever comprehend. Listen to me carefully; Tamar you must know Jesus for yourself. Please my daughter, allow Him take you on the best journey that you will ever go through. Let Him uniquely express Himself to you in a way that no one on the surface of this earth has ever experienced. Do not let anyone paint a picture they personally have of Jesus to you. Those are only guidelines but the imprint of Jesus on your heart should be unique to you just like your finger prints. No one else on the surface of this earth has it my sweetheart. Tamar mummy experienced this last year. After 26 years of barely scratching the surface, God visited me. After all the heartaches and disappointments, He answered mummy’s prayer in giving her life partner, your priceless daddy. Just like Jesus who gives us exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we can ever ask or imagine, He brought daddy with so many life changing blessings that it broke mummy to the point of humility at God’s grace and mercy. Why is this important? I feel you asking. Well Tamar, if I could be given the chance to come back to earth from scratch just like you, with the knowledge of what my 26th year will bring, I will wait! Yes I know that sounds scary but baby my 25 previously lived years on earth are nothing compared to what I’ve experienced in 1 year since I’ve found Jesus intimately for myself.

You will learn that some have it different and have to wait longer or shorter but my love God doesn’t work with our time. He works with our purpose! Everyone’s story will be different but one thing will always be the same till the end of time and that’s Jesus. Looking back, all the cold tears, depression, lonely thoughts, hopeless thoughts, emotional instability, immorality and compromise in those years were not worth my struggle. Although they have carved me into being who I am now, the road would probably have been less painful. I fought and disliked God so much during these years for my own will and not His. Now I bow absolutely face down, flat on the ground at God’s amazing miracle in my life. It was all worth the pain. This blessing is the reason why I can write this letter to you my love.

I’m not perfect Tamar neither is the life around me, and I know for sure that God did not bless me because of my perfection but because He chose to. Sometimes it brings me to tears at the thought of why He chose to bless me and love me unexplainably. As a matter of fact, mummy still has many struggles and battles that keep her constantly on her knees for Jesus but His joy speaks louder than any pain. All I plead is that you let your heart sit in the palm of His hands were you get to deeply appreciate Him for who He is. It is important you get it right Tamar. Please never ever judge the world but also don’t feel at home in this world. In your generation, let God use you as an example of what the mighty power of two can be. I pray that God keeps me till your wedding day when I will smile knowing that you made the right decision, the Jesus decision.

Life will not be perfect baby, it will be bumpy, there will be tears, you will be stretched, you will have scary thoughts, and you will doubt Jesus and entertain fear several times. These are realities that mummy is preparing you for. But unlike mummy, you can handle these differently by focusing on Jesus and learning to trust Him right from the very start of your life. I’m here to help you always baby, but I can only go so far! Forever run to Jesus and no one else for all the help that you will ever need. No one can ever make you who you are Tamar, only Jesus! Never forget this. You will never be alone in this life long race. I love you my precious daughter and the Lord knows I can’t wait to meet you. It is an honour and one of my greatest achievements to be the first to introduce Jesus to you. With all the love in my heart, Mummy

For about 3 months this year, I did not publish. Although, in all fairness, I was writing (scribbling thoughts down), I did not finish any piece. Before now, I worked a more flexible job and I lived in an environment that allowed me more privacy and time to myself and thoughts but my reality changed in January and with the blessings of this new reality came the challenge of “getting into the zone” (writers will relate). While I conveniently threw blames, gave excuses and wished, nothing changed until eventually, after months of waiting unproductively, I took responsibility for the results I need to deliver by creating the environment I need within the environment I have. And, it’s working.

Sista, anything can work if you work it.

Too many times we are stagnated in life not because we don’t have dreams or the ability and desire to make those dreams happen but because we are waiting for the perfect weather.We allow unfavorable circumstances to incapacitate us and we sit back blaming everyone but ourselves and making excuses for nonperformance with the hope that one day, the galaxies will align and we’ll finally have all the time and resources we think we need to do what we need to do. The truth, however, is that life will not always present to us the realities we want or deserve. But if we’ll dare to objectively reexamine our current realities with a different attitude and from a different perspective, we will discover that what we have is good material to work with. We have the ability to create preferred realities using our current realities as the raw material.If you approach your reality with the “I can work this” attitude and you see the challenge as an opportunity to create, you can make anything- unemployment, disability, financial difficulty, a breakup, loss, pressure- work.Besides, there’s no situation that is entirely unique to anyone. Someone somewhere has made a worse situation work!

However, note that somethings can be changed! Nevertheless, some things can only be worked. You cannot change the taste of lemon juice, but if lemon juice is all you’ve got, you can make it work by adding some sugar. It’s up to you!No matter how hard you complain about “not having enough time” you really cannot have more than 24 hours in a day. So you can either maximize the time you have by task prioritization and proper planning or stay stuck in complains. Whatever it is, stop waiting for better. Take responsibility and create it.Working your reality means working with your reality.

Sometimes God deprives us of certain luxuries only so that our eyes can be open to see opportunities in strange places. It is amazing how extreme pressure juices out the best we never knew existed within us. How shame, struggles and pain reveal the strength we never knew we had. How our desperation for a breakthrough leads us to making unprecedented discoveries.How in our quest for solutions we become solutions.

You can live the life you want within the life you have but it won’t happen without your effort. So, stop waiting to “get into your zone”. Roll up your sleeves and work your reality!

Enjoy God always.

Thrive!

DeborahAdeojo

Bringing church home; How to make your children remain in Christ throughout their life span

Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.
Proverbs 22:6 NLT

Why are children who were raised in the church falling out of church as they grow older? Is the church doing something wrong or are the parents missing something somewhere?

While growing up, the trend was to ensure your kids go to school, after schools and nobody asks to see your homework, nobody asked what you were thought in school that day or what happened in school. Our parents where to busy trying to make money. Same things goes for Sunday school, nobody asked questions about Sunday school teachings or what activities or your new friends in church. Our parents thought that sending us to school, lesson and Sunday school meant that we automatically turn out great; well wrong.
We should not follow that trend. While my younger brother was in school I noticed his school devised a method to make parents involved with the child’s schooling by sending a report booklet with the home work. I did all the signing and checking of homework for him, my mum was super busy.
Anyways same thing with my daughter in fact based on that knowledge I had I looked for a school that had that same pattern. I do my daughters homework with her, not only that, when I go pick her up from school, I start asking her questions to make her talk about whatever happened in her class for that day. She is only 3 years old so this also helps her increase her vocabulary daily, it’s a win, win situation.
I also have a close relationship with her teacher, it’s very important, have your kids’ teachers’ number. The school also has this policy where each class has a WhatsApp group which is great.

I brought church home for my kids, I am raising my kids to understand that the church is not a building; the church is you and I and what is important is not the building but ensuring that our lives are exemplary to that of Christ.

We need to make our kids understand that church is not where you go and slay, help them know why they go to church, don’t assume that because they go to church they are well grounded in Christ.
After service every Sunday ask them what they learnt discuss it and try to apply to their lifestyle.
Oh the joy of a child knowing Jesus at a young age. I was eager as a child to know more and more about Jesus I consider it a privilege.
Let your children know God from little, do not leave it to the church to do all the work be involved, have memory verses for the week, when they do something wrong punish them with scripture reading/writing it and tell them to summaries it for you; to them it is a punishment but you are actually planting a seed that will yield good fruit in the future.
Bring Church home. Let your kids see Christ in you, help them involve Christ in everything they do.
My daughter wanted a skipping rope, I told her to pray to God for it, she did it then and there because we were at the salon, it’s not like I could not get her the skipping rope how much was it, I just felt she had too many toys.
My daughter prayed all week and the next for that skipping rope. Her dad personally went to get it for her, He was tired of hearing the prayer Lol. He was tripped by her attitude towards prayer and asking for what she wanted. Teach your kids the way of God and when they are old they will not depart from it.

As a working mum I know your time is not flexible and during the week you are swamped. If it’s possible to drop off or pick your kids from school please do so. Discuss with them in the car, you can also discuss while you are having dinner at the table. Make sure your weekends are for your kids. Your kids should never feel like a burden b deliberate about your relationship with them. Let there be no doors stopping them from reaching you at any time.
Till next time remain blessed.

Recently God has been reminding me that the singular most important thing in our Christian walk is a personal relationship with Him.When I say personal I mean that kind of one on one relationship when God can call you His friend like He did to Abraham, the type of relationship that God can tell you what is in His Agenda (Gen 18:16),the type where you stay in His presence to worship and study the word just to know Him more.

There are plenty reasons why this is important for you but I will be talking about just one today. Scripture says that in the last days the love of many will wax cold, nations will rise against nations and many false prophets shall arise (Matthew 24:6-12) and I am sure if you are one with the understanding of times like the sons of Issachar you will agree that we are in the last days.

I hear all kinds of doctrines and teachings these days that does not have any scriptural basis in the word of God and I can’t help but weep sometimes. The amazing thing is that Christians are devouring all these falseness and as i was recently asking the lord,the answer why it is so dropped in my spirit.It is majorly because we no longer take time to study the word for ourselves, we are not like the Berean Christians that go back after Paul has taught them to check if what he said was true (a whole Paul the apostle oh) (Acts 17:11) this shows that no man is infallible.

Nowadays we take everything we hear and digest it hook line and sinker;we are quick to forget that the Holy Spirit is our teacher and he will guide us into all truth.We need to get to a point where we know the lord for ourselves not tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine (Eph 4:14).The truth of the matter is that God is yearning to talk to us,he sees the questions and the confusion in our hearts and he really wants to answer them but we need to commit to spending time with him and searching the scriptures, it is only the word of God that is final and steadfast.

Study the word of God with the heart of a child always yearning to understand and know more,as a Lady that loves the lord we should have knowledge about basic doctrines of Christianity like baptism, laying on of hands,resurrection and second coming etc., so that when people start to drop the so called revelation we know that it is not in keeping with the word of God.

You can do character study, chapter study, book study (e.g. study the book of Daniel), get a simpler translation if you need to, just make sure you are studying the word of God to show yourself approved (2 Tim 3:16).Don’t just study because you have a preaching engagement or because you are the one taking bible study,study to know more about your Lord and his ways.The word of God is a compass it guides us it is also a sieve that helps us to separate the wheat from the chaff.